Spitzer Admin: O'Connell Mailer May Break Law (Updated)

State Homeland Security Office spokesman Dennis Michalski slammed GOP 7th SD candidate Maureen O’Connell for using a “falsified state seal” in her campaign mailer, saying the move was “inappropriate” if not outright illegal.Â

“It is completely inappropriate for a political candidate to use a falsified state seal in the context of a political campaign. Politicizing state security issues is inappropriate and trivializes the law enforcement efforts of New York’s office of Homeland Security,” Michalski said. “We direct the campaign and candidate to the following passage from New York’s penal law that identifies such actions as arguably illegal.”

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Here’s the passage in question:

Â§ 190.25.Â Criminal impersonation in the second degree

A person is guilty of criminal impersonation in the second degree when he:

1. Impersonates another and does an act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another; or

2. Pretends to be a representative of some person or organization and does an act in such pretended capacity with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another; or

3. (a) Pretends to be a public servant, or wears or displays without authority any uniform, badge, insignia or facsimile thereof by which such public servant is lawfully distinguished, or falsely expresses by his words or actions that he is a public servant or is acting with approval or authority of a public agency or department; and (b) so acts with intent to induce another to submit to such pretended official authority, to solicit funds or to otherwise cause another to act in reliance upon that pretense.
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Criminal impersonation in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.

“The law was not broken. If there should be any concern about a law that was broken, it should be about buying the WFP line. This is obviously Craig Johnson’s harebrained response to a real accusation made by the Working Families Party chairman in Suffolk County.”

(NOTE: To make sense of that, read the post entitled “Accusations Fly,” which appears above).